Man convicted of beating Mexican laborers in attack on New York's Long Island

The Associated Press

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) An alleged white supremacist was convicted Wednesday of trying to kill two Mexican laborers in an attack that inflamed racial tensions in several Long Island communities.
Ryan Wagner, 20, was found guilty of two counts each of attempted murder and assault. Another defendant, Christopher Slavin, 29, was convicted of the same charges three months ago and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

The beatings exacerbated tensions over the laborers, who assemble on street corners and wait for contractors and landscapers to hire them for the day. Critics say the workers are mostly illegal immigrants.

Prosecutor Eileen Powers charged that Wagner and Slavin lured their victims, Israel Perez and Magdaleno Estrada Escamilla, to an abandoned basement in September 2000 with a promise of work. She said the two then beat the men with shovels, a post-hole digger and a knife.

Perez and Estrada testified against Wagner and identified him as their attacker. The victims, who have since returned to Mexico, have also filed a $66 million federal civil rights lawsuit against Wagner, Slavin and others.

Wagner admitted driving from Queens to Long Island to vent his rage, hooking up with Slavin before the pair approached the two Mexicans and offered them a day job cleaning out the basement.

He said his intent was only to "beat up" the laborers and claimed not to know that Slavin was planning to bash the workers with shovels.

He said his anger raged out of control due to his drug and alcohol consumption.

"I was gone," he testified, after admitting to taking two doses of LSD during a night of drinking. "I was hammered."

He also claimed that Perez had actually attacked him in the basement before he pulled a knife in self-defense.

However, Wagner was not injured in the melee while Perez suffered seven knife wounds and nearly bled to death from a deep slash to his wrist. He was forced to flag down a car on the Long Island Expressway to get treatment.

This is all bullcrap. Indians attacked and murdered whites in Mexico and South America and were never brought to justice. We should treat these monsters the same way they treat our kind- We are not safe in their land,they should not be safe in our land. If whites had this attitude, we would not have the problems that we have now. I hope that one day,we can form a country that will not accept such blatant invasion and voilation of white land and rights as occurs everyday in every western nation.